Private Project

en hägring

It is in a stark and unforgiving wasteland, "en hagring" (Swedish for "a mirage") begins. A cold, pallid desert stretches endlessly, where strange artifacts lie strewn, pointing the way to an initiation cloaked in mystery. The relentless gales and drifting sands steer us to an ancient altar of worship, a relic of ages past.

There, four ethereal, bald women, draped in austere monkish garb, wordlessly beckon toward a secluded pool. We then, akin to the heroes of antiquity, embark on an odyssey beneath the earth's crust, forsaking the howling wind and pallid light for an abyss of pure darkness, where only a muffled symphony of sounds prevails. It is in this abyss that a faint light appears, piercing the shroud of darkness, beckoning the viewer onward, guiding them through an enigmatic journey – whether into the depths of their own soul or to an unforeseen destination.

  • Johan Vågstedt
    Director
    https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6505270
  • Danila Sergienko
    Director
  • Johan Vågstedt
    Writer
  • Danila Sergienko
    Writer
  • Johan Vågstedt
    Producer
  • Danila Sergienko
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Surrealism
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes 46 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 20, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    1,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    No Dialogue
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Johan Vågstedt, Danila Sergienko

Johan is a Sweden-born visual artist, living and working out of Montreal at the visual effects studio Outpost VFX. His return to Montreal last summer marks the third time he has chosen to make Canada his home, during a 10-year-long career that has afforded him the opportunity to live and work in places like India and Australia. After recently working on the Academy award winning visual effects team on Denis Villeneuve's Sci-fi epic Dune, Johan has started expanding his artistic breadth, integrating tools like Ableton and TouchDesigner with his background in high end feature film visual effects.
Danila was born in Ukraine, and lived in Saint Petersburg as a musician, composer, sound designer and engineer. He has been experimenting with spatial audio for different installations and performances since 2015. He led the audio department at the Lensovet - the Saint Petersburg state academic theatre. Presently, he resides in Montreal, where he is engaged in collaborative projects with Johan Vagstedt.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

With this short film we wanted to create something we had never seen the likes of in the full dome format before.
We, the directors of the film, saw the SAT fest as a great opportunity to extend our skills into the world of creating content for a dome.

With a background in feature film visual effects on films like Dune and most recently Ridley Scott's Napoleon, Johan Vagstedt on this project worked with Unreal Engine and Touchdesigner to create the etherial visual landscape of the film. Meanwhile Danila Sergienko, a musician, composer and sound engineer by trade, built the sonic environment for the piece. A fully spatial audio experience that makes the visuals come alive and make the audience feel like they've left Saint Laurent boulevard and travelled to a truly otherworldly place. Our film is an invitation, a metaphorical journey within, that seeks to capture ancient ideas with very modern tools. This was an incredibly rewarding learning experience for the both of us that has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for our creative process. We hope that it evokes the same amount of mystery and wonder in the audience that this film, even after completing it, still does for us.

Sincerely,

Johan Vagstedt & Danila Sergienko